


Life for a Life

by heartemoji



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Gore, Minor Violence, contains very little dream, i dont write fast enough to keep up with the quickly evolving canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29712387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartemoji/pseuds/heartemoji
Summary: Dream escapes the prison and the first thing he does is go after the person who failed to uphold a certain debt.-Takes place between Ranboo building his house and Tommy being trapped in the prison-
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55





	Life for a Life

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I did see that joke tweet about Techno ghosting Dream during his arrest and ran with it

Absurdly, Techno's oft bemoaned property value was the first thing that sprung to Ranboo's mind when he returned from his enderwalk state. Massive craters containing a single piece of obsidian littered the blood splattered landscape and the ruins of Techno's two destroyed buildings. The corpses of Techno's wolves spread across the front yard, most in bloody chunks left behind by their explosive ends.

"Techno?" Ranboo shouted into the air the instant he took it all in.

Immediately he took off towards the remains of the main house and didn't pause upon passing the corpses of the fledgeling polar bear army, crushed by Techno's fallen roof.

"Techno?" He shouted again.

Ranboo climbed over the rubble and finally spotted shining metal laying in the snow. He recognized Techno's prone form and fell to his knees beside him.

The piglin looked dead- blood and burns covered his armor and Ranboo could barely tell if he was breathing. 

"Don't be dead- please." He quickly took Techno's helmet off and tested for a pulse. Piglin's heartbeats were always naturally slow but Ranboo felt as if several minutes passed before he felt a beat.

"Okay- okay- what do I do?" Ranboo rambled to himself.

He didn't have any potions on him- and any in Techno's house had been destroyed. Ranboo's brain screamed at him to not leave Techno in the cold and snow the instant he thought about running to his own house. But- he had totems of undying in his enderchest, and they could save Techno better than anything else he had.

Ranboo shot up and raced to his house- the enderchest in Techno's house appeared to have been destroyed- and yanked open his own enderchest.

They were gone- all his totems and even his potion storage were completely empty.

"No- no- no." Panic welled up inside him and he fought to keep himself calm. "Okay- bandages- I have those."

The first aid kit Ranboo kept beside his door, as advised by Phil, remained untouched so he tore it off the wall and booked it back to Techno.

Ranboo mumbled to himself while he worked to wrestle Techno's broken armor off him without aggravating his injuries. He started clumsily wrapping Techno's wounds- slashes on his arms, chest- anywhere that was still sluggishly bleeding.

"I just- he just needs to survive long enough for me to make potions. It doesn't matter how bad these are, they just need to work." Words kept tumbling out of his mouth while fear coursed through him. "Oh god- I need to bring him inside."

Ranboo quickly realized that Techno weighed at least 300 pounds when he wrapped his hands around the piglin's shoulders and tugged.

"I need help." He opened his comm and ignored the multitude of messages he'd missed.

[You whisper to Ph1LzA: HELP COME TO TECHNOS ITS URGENT]

Ranboo's comm pinged for Phil's response but Ranboo had already returned to dragging Techno through the destroyed battlefield and into his house. The fifty meters between where Techno fell and the entrance to Ranboo's house felt as if they'd taken an hour to cross and he forced himself to ignore the way his arms and back ached as he brought Techno into his living room.

The piglin's bandages were already bled through and blood began staining Ranboo's floor.

[Ph1LzA whispered to you: im omw  
Ph1LzA whispered to you: techno isnt responding r u ok  
Ph1LzA whispered to you: im in the nether  
You whispered to Ph1LzA: hurry]

He set his comm aside and turned back to Techno and unwrapped the bloodied bandages, cleaned his wounds as best he could, and wrapped him with new ones. By the time he finished Techno looked similar to a mummy and his blood matted fur did him no favors.

Ranboo approached his brewing stands when his door flew open and slammed against the wall.

"Techno?" Phil exclaimed in shock.

The man set down Techno's sword and rushed to his side.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking." The quip slipped out of Ranboo's mouth without a proper thought.

Phil shot him a worried look. "You're standing- I'm worried about the fact that Techno's on the ground unconscious and that there was a massive bloody trail leading to your house."

"Do you have a totem of undying? It'll be easier than- I mean he might die before I can even make the potions."

"Don't you have any?" Phil asked even as he reached for Ranboo's enderchest.

"I- they're gone."

Phil took a totem from his chest and pressed it into Techno's limp hand. "What do you mean 'gone'?"

"I looked for them too, when I saw… Techno, but they're just gone from my enderchest. I- I lost more time and did something to them when I was sleepwalking."

"Potions- Ranboo- I don't know where you keep your ingredients but we need to make some fast."

That spurred Ranboo into motion again. "Right- what should I make?"

"Anything that will heal him but don't waste time putting in glowstone dust he could die before you finish it." Phil instructed.

Ranboo quickly raced to his not-so-hidden basement and filled six bottles with water from his pond and shoved them into his brewing stands.

While he was gone Phil took off his cloak, covered Techno with it and thread his hand through the piglin's fur.

"What happened here, Ranboo, who was Techno fighting? There wasn't a death message."

"I don't know." He focused on carefully adding netherwart to the potions, frequently making minute adjustments to their exposure to the blaze powder. "I blacked out."

Phil stood up and looked around. "Unless Techno fought an entire group of people the only one that would match him is Dream. But, I don't know why Dream would come here so soon after escaping the prison."

Ranboo froze. "Dream escaped?"

Phil shot him a look. "Yeah, about a day or two ago, you doin' alright, mate?"

"I think I lost all that time- I lost entire days, Phil, Dream was in jail in my last memory." Ranboo abandoned the potions for a moment and yanked his memory book out of his bag. "Yeah, my last entry is dated two days ago."

"Just before Dream escaped- I wouldn't be surprised if your brain blocked out the memories or something." Phil entered Ranboo's bedroom and returned with his comforter.

"What..?"

Phil laid it over Techno. "He's cold and he's a piglin, warming him up is critical. Can you watch him for a bit? I'm going to go collect his armor and shit."

Ranboo nodded. "Yeah I'll… tell you if he dies or something."

"Don't let that happen." Phil joked before leaving.

The netherwart finished while Phil was gone and Ranboo began filtering in a glistening melon and a ghast tear into his two stands.

Phil returned, dragging Techno’s armor behind him and with Rocket Launcher thrown across his back. “Do you have any magma cream?”

He tossed the items on the ground next to Orphan Obliterator.

“Uh, yeah, in that chest there.” Ranboo pointed to his potion chest.

“Piglin biology is really fuckin’ weird, if we put magma cream on his wounds he’ll heal faster. Wanted for his blood to clot before we started applying it, though.”

“Great, that’s great, uh, could we try waking him up to feed him a gapple?”

Phil pulled magma cream out of the chest. “No, we’ll feed him a grapple after he wakes up naturally, we shouldn’t try to force anything down him in this state.”

Ranboo glanced back at his potions. “Should I add gunpowder to these?”

“We can apply the normal potion directly to his wounds, don’t bother with the gunpowder.”

“Got it, got it.” Ranboo focused on properly combining his potions while Phil once again changed Techno’s bandages.

“You didn’t do half bad on the bandages, Ranboo.”

They were awfully wrapped, Ranboo knew it, and so did Phil. “Thanks.”

“With potions I imagine you’ve never had to wrap an injury before so this is passable, Techno didn’t bleed out, anyhow.” Phil worked quickly and professionally with rewrapping the bandages and applying magma cream. “Nothing we can do about his internal bleeding from these stomach wounds, though, until you get those potions done.”

“They’re almost done, gimme another minute or two.”

Both of their comms, which had been steadily pinging messages the entire time, suddenly started going crazy.

“What the hell….” Both men shared a look and then opened their comms.

[Dream succumbed to his injuries after picking a fight with Technoblade]

Comments from almost every person in the server poured in, making them almost unreadable by the speed they passed.

“Well that explains… who Techno fought.” Phil said.

“Why did he… come here? Why did they fight?” Ranboo stared numbly at his comm screen.

“Techno might know when he wakes up.” Phil looked down at Techno before he suddenly shot up to his feet. “Dream’s corpse will be nearby- I should find him before a polar bear eats him. Are the potions ready?”

“Almost, I’ll give them to him, Phil.”

“Great, I’ll be back asap, and I’ll try to stop anyone from coming here ‘cause they’ll probably be curious.”

“Thanks, Phil.”

Ranboo kept one eye on his comm while he finished the potions.

[Ph1LzA: alright everyone CALM DOWN]

Several messages whizzed by, forcing Phil to spam his message a few times before Sam backed him up.

[awesamdude: let him speak, phil lives with techno and would know what happened  
Ph1LzA: truthfully i don’t know what the hell happened. ranboo msgd me for help about half an hour ago and when i got to technos house the entire place had already been destroyed. ranboo isnt able to tell me what happened either  
Ph1LzA: well have to wait until techno wakes up and recovers from his injuries to know what really happened  
Ph1LzA: im currently around technos house looking for dreams corpse if i see anyone im killing them on sight no questions asked. understood?  
awesamdude: understood]

The potions finished brewing and Ranboo quickly brought them over to Techno before hesitating.

[You whispered to Ph1LzA: should i take the bandages off before pouring the potion on his injuries  
Ph1LzA whispered to you: yup put as much potion on his injuries as is needed to heal them and then move on. focus on the wounds on his chest/stomach first. if you dont have enough potions to heal an injury rewrap it and make more potions  
You whispered to Ph1LzA: ok]

Ranboo set the potions down and carefully peeled the bandages wrapped around Techno's gut away, revealing a still bleeding hole in his stomach, one Ranboo knew went all the way through. He wasted no time in uncapping one of the instant health pots and pouring it into the wound.

It took the entire potion to heal it until only a scar was left behind. Ranboo moved on to a stab wound that tore apart Techno's side, and that took a good portion of a potion. His upper chest was more or less free from any scrapes but was covered in bruises, though Ranboo realized almost any hits there would be instantly fatal. He ignored the bruises and moved on to Techno's arms, using the rest of the instant health potions, and then poured a regen potion onto a gash in Techno's thigh.

His comm pinged.

[Ph1LzA whispered to you: found dreams body. ill bury him quick unless you want a corpse stinking up your house  
You whispered to Ph1LzA: no im good  
Ph1LzA whispered to you: alright mate lol hows techno doing  
You whispered to Ph1LzA: techno didnt die and i think i got all his injuries just waiting for him to wake up now  
Ph1Lza whispered to you: with all the blood loss he probs wont wake up until tomorrow  
You whispered to Ph1LzA: should i get him off the ground  
Ph1LzA whispered to you: probably, now that he isnt bleeding all over the place he should be safe to move  
Ph1LzA: found dream and buried him cause we dont have any place to keep his corpse. if anyone wants to bury him elsewhere we can talk about digging him up later]

Ranboo put the comm in his pocket and pulled the totem out of Techno's hand before carefully dragging Techno into his guest room. He heaved the massive piglin onto the low bed and then adjusted him into a sleeping position.

“Ranboo?” Phil’s voice came from the front door.

“Over here.” Ranboo poked his head out from the bedroom.

“Hey mate, you got a shower?” He gestured down to his dirt-covered clothes. “I usually use Techno’s, but, ya know…”

Ranboo closed the bedroom door behind him and led Phil to the bathroom. “Towels are in the closet, here.”

Phil looked in and pulled out a few. “We’ll need these to clean up the blood on your floor.”

“Oh, yeah.” Ranboo looked back at his living room and stared at the Technoblade-sized blood puddle on his floor.

“It’s alright, mate, we’ll clean this up and I’ll cook us something for dinner.” Phil gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Techno’s out of the danger zone so we just need to wait until he wakes up to tell us what happened.”

\-----

Like Phil predicted Techno didn’t wake up until the next afternoon, while Phil was out cleaning what remained of Techno’s house. Ranboo jumped in shock when Techno groaned and opened his eyes, the first sign of consciousness Ranboo’d seen in hours.

“Techno?” Ranboo asked quietly.

Techno grunted something in Piglin and then tried to speak in English. “Ra-”

“Do you want water?” He reached for the cup he’d placed by Techno’s bedside.

“Yup.” Techno said hoarsely.

The water had long since cooled down to lukewarm- Phil had insisted that warm water was healthier than cold water for piglins- but Ranboo still handed it over to Techno, who had started sitting up.

“Did I die?” Techno asked while he took the water in a gently shaking hand.

“No, we pumped you full of potions and you made it.”

“I feel like I died.” Techno took a sip of the water and then lowered the cup.

“Yeah, you were kind of messed up.”

“Where’s Phil?”

Ranboo held up his comm. “Outside cleaning up your house, I can ask him to come in.”

“Sure.” Techno shifted in bed and awkwardly searched his own pockets for his comm. “I was fightin’ Dream, what happened to him?”

“Oh, he died, Phil buried him last night.”

“Huh.”

[You whispered to Ph1LzA: technos awake and asked to see you  
Technoblade: technoblade never dies]

Techno snorted as the chat exploded, and in the swarm of messages Ranboo spotted Phil’s response.

[Ph1LzA whispered to you: yeah i think i noticed, im coming back in  
You whispered to Ph1LzA: cool]

A couple minutes later Phil knocked on the doorframe, disrupting the silence they had both fallen into.

“Phil!” Ranboo and Techno said at the same time.

“How do ya feel, Techno?” Phil smiled at them.

“Worse than the time I got smashed flat by an anvil.”

Phil and Ranboo winced sympathetically, and at the memory of Techno’s failed execution.

“Well you didn’t die this time so that’s a plus.” Phil stepped into the room and sat in a chair he’d pulled in the previous night.

Techno took another sip from his water. “No, but that’s actually connected to why Dream came to my house to kill me.”

Phil shared a confused look with Ranboo. “How?”

“I dunno, I think he went crazy after being in isolation in prison for so long, but he was ranting about ‘a life for a life’ or something.” Techno glanced at Ranboo. “I owed Dream a life debt because he essentially gave me the totem that saved me from bein’ executed, and he tried to cash it in when Tommy and the others all arrested him but I left him on read ‘cause I did not want to get involved with all that. He was mad about that and the fact that Tommy used my axe to kill him- an axe that Dream witnessed Tommy steal but that’s beside the point- so he came to me somehow fully geared and ready for a fight after bein’ in prison for so long amd said that if I wasn’t going to respect the debt he was going to take the life I should have lost before. I think he was also trying to assert his authority over the server again by killing me, he’d be making a point about how strong he still is. Obviously, I wasn’t a fan of that and fought him back, I managed to severely injury him and forced him to retreat and clearly he had run out of potions ‘cause he died.”

“Which is when I found you half dead?” Ranboo supplied.

“Yup.” Techno knocked back the rest of the water like it was in a shot glass. “Speaking of- you helped Dream.”

“What?” He squeaked out in terror.

“I watched you leave a few hours before Dream escaped, you didn’t respond to any of my messages, and you came back to my house with Dream, invited him into yours, and you just kinda watched as he brutalized me and my pets.” He set the cup on the nightstand as if he hadn’t rocked Ranboo’s entire world.

“I-” Ranboo tried to speak, to say anything to defend himself.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Phil’s expression change to a deep frown- something Ranboo hadn’t seen on Phil’s face since the man destroyed an entire country.

“Calm down.” Techno poorly assured him. “This has to do with the fact that you heard Dream’s voice in your head, right? He was controllin’ you, manipulation’ you?”

“Y- yeah.” Ranboo stuttered. “Probably, I’ve been experiencing black outs and I think- oh god, I think my urge to gather totems and other materials was to assist Dream, maybe not for this specifically, but for something.”

Techno nodded and Phil’s face relaxed into something kinder and less terrifying.

“Well, he’s dead now, so you should hopefully stop experiencing that.” Phil supplied.

“Hopefully.” Ranboo said, unconvincingly.

“I don’t know whether to be happy or not about Dream being dead, either.”

“Why?” Ranboo asked after a beat.

“Aside from the fact that Dream was a useful but unreliable ally, he was going to revive Wilbur. That’s the only reason Tommy kept him alive, to revive Wilbur, and now that that’s a shot idea, we’ll have to find another way to bring Wilbur back.”

“Oh.”

Techno’s ears fell at the mention of Wilbur. “Well I didn’t use up your totem so you can still use that to revive Wilbur.”

“Yeah- anyway- I didn’t mean to make this so depressing, Techno are you up for some food? You missed lunch so I bet you’re starving.”

“Absolutely famished.” Techno admitted and then threw the covers off himself.

Phil stood up. “Try to get out of bed so soon after nearly dying and I’ll break your legs, I’ll bring the food to you.”

After a moment of silent deliberation Techno shut his mouth and fixed the comforter. “Fine.”

Ranboo smiled and got up to follow Phil. “I can get you more water, Techno.”

“Yeah, thanks, so far I’d rate your room service 7 outta 10 because Phil threatened to break my legs.”

“You know I will.” Phil shouted from the kitchen.

Techno snorted and picked up his comm again. “Sam’s drillin' me for info, want me to leave out your hand in Dream’s escape?”

Ranboo froze halfway out the door. “Yeah- please do.”

“Got it, but I’m sure Phil would kill Sam if he tried to arrest you, and for what it’s worth, I’d help Phil.”

“Thanks, Techno.” Ranboo ducked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
